


The White Wolf and the Maiden Fair

by sassylorastyrell



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 13:36:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7620106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassylorastyrell/pseuds/sassylorastyrell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically all of my JonxSansa one-shots from tumblr, posted here for your amusement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The 12 Direwolf Princesses

He can see the shock on Sansa’s face the minute she spots them in the Godswood, her blue eyes widen just before a smile spreads so wide across her face he thinks it’s about to crack.

A moment later she’s laughing so hard that her face turns redder than her hair.

Jon can feel his own cheeks growing warm, though for an entirely different reason.

“Mama!” the girls shout, climbing off of him and running into Sansa’s arms.

It’s a wonderful sight, one Jon never tires of seeing. He loves to see the regal lady of Winterfell melt away into motherhood. Sansa kneels beside them all, stroking Selena’s hair, which as always seems to be inexplicably wilder than her sisters.

She bites back her smile and attempts to play parent.

“Girls, why don’t you let your father get some rest, hm?” she suggests. “I do believe I saw lemon cakes baking in the kitchen a moment ago. They’ll probably be ready by the time you get there.”

Their little faces light up and they rush off in a flurry of giggles. No doubt, all of their daughters have inherited their mother’s sweet tooth.

Sansa stands once again after they’re gone, brushing off her skirts and smirking.

“Not a word,” Jon says, picking one of the daisies out of his curls.

Lyanna had just learned how to braid daisy chains and she was intent on teaching her younger sisters. Somewhere along the way they agreed _father’s_ hair was best for practicing and, well, he couldn’t bring himself to say no with their bright eyes pleading up at him.

“What would I say?” Sansa, bites her lip. “You make a much prettier Queen of Love and Beauty than I ever could.”

Jon growls and leaps from his seat, shedding several flowers along the way. Sansa laughs as he chases her.

Apparently, their daughters inherited their mother’s sense of humor as well.


	2. Jon Snow's bride's cloak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a comment that popped up on my dash: Since Sansa gave Jon a cloak, you could say that Jon is now Sansa's wife. I'm gonna pretend that the wildings are confused enough about southern customs that they now think Jon is Sansa's wife.

“Your wife is staring at you,” Tormund nodded over the fire in the direction of Jon’s tent.

Jon glanced up from his wineskin to see Sansa gazing at him beside his tent flaps while talking to Ser Davos. She smiled just slightly when she caught him looking and nodded.

Jon gave a slight wave and smiled back. It was good to see her smile after all that she went through. A moment later though, Tormund’s words sunk in and his brow furrowed in confusion.

“What are you on about?” Jon asked.

Tormund took a long swig of his soured goat’s milk and laughed.

“You’re right, I suppose _you’re_ the wife,” he replied. “It was she that gifted you the cloak and it’s her sigil you wear.”

Jon choked on his own wine at Tormund’s proclamation and the other man clapped him on the back as the other wildlings around the camp fire laughed.

“You-you honestly thought that Sansa and I—that we—that we were _married?”_ Jon asked incredulously.

Now Tormund was the one to look confused, his bushy eyebrows shooting all the way up to the red of his hairline.

“Aye, of course,” he answered. “I can’t think of any other reason why a man and woman exchange cloaks. Or why a man would follow a woman on such a journey unless she’d stolen him.”

Jon laughed at the notion of Sansa stealing anybody. Though he could see where the wildlings got these wild notions: After all, he was wearing the Stark cloak Sansa made him. And he did drop everything for her when she arrived at the Wall. But still…

“She’s my sister!” Jon exclaimed.

 “Aye, and I fucked a bear,” Tormund answered. “Stranger things have happened. And we know how you have a thing for girls kissed by fire…”

“This is absurd,” Jon scoffed, standing abruptly and walking back to his tent.

He was still shaking his head as he approached Davos and Sansa.

“Is everything alright?” Sansa asked, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder as she saw his scowl.

Jon glanced back at the campfire where Tormund wiggled his eyebrows and lifted his goat’s milk to Jon.

“Fine,” Jon muttered sullenly, pushing past them into his tent.


	3. Love before death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: in the middle of the final battle in the war against the Others, Jon realizes he doesn't wanna die without telling Sansa that he's in love with her, so he tells her just in case they don't survive... but they do survive.

Jon barely restrains his screams as they carry him on a stretcher into the halls of Last Hearth. His gut feels as if it is full of frostbite. It is a cruel thing, he thinks, that a man named Snow should die of ice.

It was foolish of him to descend into the battle, he knows that now. He could have done more good in the sky with Rhaegal and the others, but his dragon knew his thoughts well enough and Daenerys could still control her to a degree. Jon was needed on the ground, it was where he flourished.

He didn’t even see the White Walker behind him who drove its icy sword clean through him. But he felt it sure enough.

He grabs Grenn’s collar as he carries a leg of the stretcher and pulls him down to whisper in his ear.

“Don’t let me turn into one of them,” he tells him. “Burn me before it happens.”  
            

Grenn looks shocked for a moment before a wavery smile overtakes his face.

“Thought you were a dragon now, Snow,” he says. “Fire probably would just warm you right up. Besides, you’re not going to die.”  
             

Jon grits his teeth, preparing him to order him as his prince, but he loses all thought when he hears her cry.

“Jon,” Sansa’s long, auburn hair is a flash of warmth in a hall filled with blood. 

 She looks panicked as she draws to his side, her ivory hands fluttering over the gaping wound in his stomach, unsure what to do.

“What happened?” she addresses the question not to him, but to his guards, her eyes welling with tears.

Jon’s vision begins to fade in and out, Sansa’s face the only point of focus. He doesn’t want her to cry. He doesn’t want her to see this at all.

Grenn, or maybe Tormund is explaining to her what happens, but their voices are all muffled as a hand flies to Sansa’s mouth in horror.

 “Sansa,” he whispers hoarsely, though she does not hear him.

The chaos around him descends into a blur and the sounds fade to near nothingness. He remembers Sam once telling him how the senses go before the soul. He’s dying.

“Sansa,” he groans, louder this time.

She’s there at his side the next moment, kneeling on the ground and grabbing his hand in hers. He can’t see her clearly anymore, but her voice is apparently the one thing he can still hear. It’s ringing cuts through the quiet.

“I’m here, Jon,” she assures him.

“I should have told you,” he says. “I was too ashamed. It wasn’t right, even after Bran told us what he did. And I felt it ever so long before then anyways…”

Sansa’s breath catches on what he thinks to be a sob.

“Felt what Jon?”

Jon closes his eyes. They seem too heavy to keep open anymore, useless as they are.

He takes a deep breath, or as deep as he can anymore. He supposes it won’t do him any good to go to his grave with secrets, as his father had done.

“I love you, Sansa,” he tells her. “Not as a brother, or a cousin, or any of that… I love you as a…”

“Jon?” Sansa shouts panicked, though now even her voice has grown quiet.

She keeps shouting, but it all gets farther away as he finally gives into the darkness.

He wakes up beneath a load of furs, and for a moment he thinks he’s back in his chambers in Winterfell, but then reality returns and he’s rather confused.

He was dead. Dead for good this time that is. That’s why he had…

Oh gods. His eyes fly open and he attempts to sit up, a bad decision apparently, as pain flies through his gut. A hand falls to cover it and rests upon soft woolen bandages that look much too snowy white to be covering the gaping bloody hole he knows was there.

His brow furrows in confusion just before a voice knocks him from his thoughts.

“I’ve changed them every hour,” Sansa says sleepily as she uncurls from the seat beside his bed in what Jon assumes must be the Great Jon’s chambers. “Maester Samwell says they only need be changed every few hours, but after that dreadful story Daenerys told us about how she lost her husband to an infected wound…”

She trails off, smiling shyly, unsure.

Jon’s face flushes as if he was still a green boy and he looks away abruptly.

“I’m alive then?” he says gruffly.

Sansa rolls her eyes (even if Jon cannot meet her eyes he can sense it) and comes to sit beside him on the bed.

“You’ve made quite good friends with a talented maester and a witch who brings men back from the dead. Gods, Jon you always were so dense about some things,” she says. “Of course you’re alive. I just can’t believe you thought we would let you die just like that. That _I_ would let you die.”

Jon looks back at her then, glancing up at her from beneath a halo of dark curls.

Warmth rushes to his injured belly to see her cheeks color lightly. But then he realizes it’s likely because she is so embarrassed, after what he said.

“Sansa,” he begins, wincing as he sits up straight in the bed. “About what I said… during the battle…”

“Oh, Jon,” Sansa interrupts, laying a hand over his own.

But he quickly draws it away.

“I shouldn’t have said it,” he says. “I never would of, if I thought it would…”

“If what?” she asked, a hint of anger in her voice. “If you thought you’d have to live with the consequences?”  
  


“No!” Jon is quick to correct her. “If I put you in the position of having to answer me. I know you could never feel that way about me, I would never want you feeling obligated to me in any way…”

He’s shocked then to hear Sansa laugh. Honest to gods laugh at him. He stares at her in astonishment.

“I can’t believe this!” she says. “All these months with me practically acting like a slattern to get you to notice me, and your damn honor blinded you the entire damn time.”

Jon’s eyebrows shoot to the top of his forehead. He’s hard-pressed to think of a time Sansa cursed in front of him and now she’d done it twice in one breath, three if you counted slattern.

“You’re a fool, Jon Snow,” she laughs, shaking her head. “I’ve loved you since the moment you walked back into my life and I realized what a foolish little girl I was all those years ago.”

A smile creeps unbidden across Jon’s face, before his mind even fully comprehends what his ears just heard.

“You love me?” he asks in astonishment. “Truly love me, I mean? Not as a brother, or—or a cousin?”

Sansa’s face flushes bright red and she ducks her chin to hide behind a veil of auburn.

“Of course, I love you,” she smiles softly, looking directly into his eyes now and it’s almost too much for Jon to bear. “You know, father once told me that he would find me a betrothed who was brave and gentle and strong. I don’t think this is what he had in mind, but you are everything he wanted for me. Everything _I_ want.”

Jon’s breath catches and though it pains him he leans forward, brushing Sansa’s hair behind her ear and letting his palm linger against her cheek.

“You do mean it,” he says for certain this time.

Sansa’s answer is her soft lips against his. It’s barely a brush before he deepens the kiss. It’s heady and wonderful and more than he ever imagined he’d get from a woman he’d resigned to calling sister.

As they part Sansa chuckles lightly.

“What is it?” he asks smiling.

“You know, your dying might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”


	4. Jon's true queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: After the war against the White Walkers is won and the Iron Throne taken, Dany offers Jon a marriage and a kingdom but he wants none. Sansa has heard part of the conversation and thinks that he's accepted the proposal, so she decides to go back to Winterfell heartbroken and alone. Soon after, Jon arrives to Winterfell, surprising Sansa very much, to tell her where (and who) he belongs to.

“I’m going to make him my king,” Daenerys whispers to her.

They sit next to one another at the high table, Sansa on the Queen’s left, as the guest of honor for the North’s delegation, and Jon sitting to her right, as he always had since his true identity had been revealed.

Of course now he was down on the dance floor with Lady Thenn, stumbling his way through the steps while Alys laughed.

It was the perfect opportunity for Daenerys to tell Sansa her little secret, her violet eyes shining as she watched Jon dance.

Sansa looked at her in shock and felt her heart plummet. She knew it was a possibility of course, it made the most sense after all: the last two Targaryens reuniting their family’s dynasty. He was the ice to her fire. The king to her queen.

But Sansa never truly believed it, or perhaps she just didn’t want to see it. She was perfectly content to keep Jon in the North with her, rebuilding Winterfell, teaching Rickon how to handle a sword, spending his nights with her talking before the fire in father’s old solar…

Sansa quickly blinked away the pinpricks of tears welling up in her eyes, before putting a mask of a smile on her face and turning toward Daenerys.

“Jon knows?” she asked.

“I believe so,” the Queen answered, taking a flirty sip of Arbor Gold. “We haven’t talked about it officially yet of course, but ever since he’s come to King’s Landing a few months ago we’ve been making preparations. He sits the throne while I visit the kingdoms, our chambers have been moved directly next to each other. Truly, he’s my consort in all but name. I plan on addressing the issue with him tonight.”

“Tonight,” Sansa just barely muttered, her entire chest feeling tight and out of breath.

“Yes, tonight,” Daenerys smiled and Sansa could easily see why they called her the most beautiful woman in the world.

Of course Jon would marry her. Of course he would be her king, give her children.

Sansa stood abruptly and Daenerys looked up at her in surprise.

“If you’ll excuse me, your grace,” she said with a curtsy. “I completely forgot that I promised to send my brother a letter as soon as our negotiations were completed.”

  
She hardly waited for Daenerys to excuse her before practically fleeing the ballroom.

She left so quickly that she didn’t even see the grey eyes tracking her steps.

* * *

Jon was quite surprised to be summoned to the Queen’s solar so late after the banquet. It wasn’t like Dany to talk politics after a revelry. Normally, she would make sure all the business was concluded before celebrating.

But there she stood at the corner of her desk, looking up and smiling when Jon entered.

“Jon,” she grinned and came over to embrace him, laying a kiss upon his cheek.

Jon smiled at his lady aunt. He had been so glad to discover Dany was a kind-hearted woman, so unlike her father, it made him feel more secure in his Targaryen lineage to know that not every dragon was made to be mad.

“Your grace,” he answered, bowing after she released him to go pour two glasses of wine. “Are we celebrating something?”

“Dany, please Jon,” she said, handing one of the glasses to him. “We are family after all, and I do hope we’ll have something to celebrate…”

Jon smiled in confusion taking a polite sip.

Dany grasped the stem of her glass firmly, and looked down at it almost as if she was avoiding his eyes. It was the first time that he’d seen her look anything akin to nervous.

“I know this can’t come as a surprise to you, but I have been in search of a king,” she said.

Jon nodded slowly, wary of where this was headed.

“You and I are the last of our kind, Jon,” Dany laid a gentle hand on his wrist. “You have the support of the North and I the South, together we can make these kingdoms strong again, restore them under a secure Targaryen rule.”

The smile fled from Jon’s face and he found himself sputtering a bit. He knew that Dany meant to marry, just as he knew that he himself would likely have to make a political match, but he never thought…

“Your grace, I…” he began, unsure of how to turn down a queen.

Daenerys took a quick step back, clearly reading his unease.

“You do not wish to marry me,” she said stolidly.

“It’s not that, not necessarily, it’s just…” Jon fumbled to explain.

Daenerys laughed mirthlessly.

“You know I have never been turned down by a man?” she asked. “But you are not particularly talented at it, I can tell.”

Jon sighed in frustration and ran a hand through his thick locks.

“I am sorry, Dany,” he said, sitting tensely on a chair before the fire.

Dany’s eyes softened and she came to sit in the seat next to him.

“You’re in love with someone else, aren’t you?” she asked quietly.

Jon looked up at her shame-faced.

“I shouldn’t be,” he replied. “It’s not as if she’d ever want me, but… Yes I am.”

Finally, a small smile reappeared on Dany’s face.

“The Lady Sansa?” she asked coyly.

Jon eyes widened in shock.

“How did you know?”

She laughed and shook her head.

“I should have known before, the way she acted at dinner,” she trailed off. “She’s mad for you Jon, just as you are for her.”

Jon scoffed, standing to turn away from his aunt.

“Sansa is not in love with me!” he replied with certainty.

“She surely is,” Daenerys reiterated, standing and turning him to face her with a hand on his shoulder. “And if you will not wed me, than we must cement our alliance with the North in a different way. As your queen, I command you to tell that girl how you feel about her and marry her. I command you to be happy, Jon.”

Jon felt overwhelmed, collapsing back to his seat. Sansa? Loving him? It wasn’t possible was it?

She was raised to think of him as nothing more than her bastard brother, he was rough and uncouth and Sansa had always longed for a golden prince.

And yet, Jon knew that was not the Sansa he knew now. The Sansa he knew now did not trust in a pretty face or pretty words. He’d seen her smile and laugh more with him and Arya and wild little Rickon than ever she did in the Capitol surrounded by soft Southroners.

In fact, it seemed the only time she was truly happy on her visit to King’s Landing was when he was with her.

Jon’s belly filled with cautious warmth. Perhaps, Daenerys was right and Sansa did return his feelings. If that were the case, he at least owed it to himself to try.

He thanked the queen and promised himself that he would speak to Sansa that very next morning. But when he sought her out, he was met with a sad smile from Lady Thenn.

“Lady Sansa left early this morning,” she told him. “She said she must return to Rickon as soon as possible now that the terms of the treaty were solidified, she entrusted Lord Manderly and I to conclude the proceedings officially…”

Alys continued speaking, but Jon didn’t quite hear her.

She was gone? Just like that? Without even saying goodbye?

Daenerys found him shortly after in the training yard, taking his frustration out on a straw-filled dummy.

“I heard about the Lady Sansa,” she said to him.

“It’s no matter,” Jon assured her, dealing a particularly harsh blow to his hay-stuffed friend. “She just doesn’t care about me the way you said she did. She sees me as nothing more than a cousin.”

Daenerys rolled her eyes and moved to stand before him. Jon reluctantly lowered his sword and it was clear in his face that he was more hurt than he was letting on.

“It’s not that, I assure you,” she said. “I was foolish and may have told Sansa we were to marry at the feast last night. I should not have done so without consulting you first, but I’m afraid she took it rather badly.”

“So you’re saying she left because she was jealous?” Jon asked incredulously.

“Gods, you northerners repress your feelings so much, you don’t even recognize them when they’re right in front of your eyes do you?” she answered with frustration. “Yes, Jon, she’s jealous because she loves you. And you love her, so what are you still doing here?”

* * *

By the time Sansa arrived back at Winterfell, she was as weary as she was heartbroken. Brienne dismounted beside her and urged her to go inside and rest while letting her take care of the retinue.

Sansa thankfully accepted but she quickly realized she would get no rest as Rickon and Arya were loudly welcoming her with giant hugs before she even walked in the door.

“Sansa, why did you not tell us Jon was coming?” Arya asked her once all homecoming sentiments were dispensed with.

Sansa mouth parted in confusion.  

“I did not know he was,” she answered.

“He got here long before you did,” Rickon said, oblivious to his eldest sister’s turmoil. “He rode in on Rhaegal! I asked if I could ride him too, but Jon said that Rhaegal doesn’t like other people on his back, but maybe when I’m older…”

Sansa failed to hear whatever it was Rickon said next because there was Jon standing before her. Snowflakes melting in his dark hair, looking so much more like himself in a simple leather jerkin than in the princely clothes he was dressed in in the South.

“My lady,” he said smiling and taking her hand. “May I speak with you privately?”

Sansa followed rather helplessly to her solar, not daring to say a word until she closed the door behind her. She readied herself to ask him what he was doing in Winterfell instead of the South with his betrothed, but he spoke before she could get a word out.

“I am to marry,” he said, his smile so big it was apt to burst (a strange expression for his usually solemn face.)

Sansa swallowed the knot building in her throat. He looked so happy, so in love, she could not bear to temper his joy.

“I know,” she said with a wavery smile. “Daenerys told me before I left.”

“I’m quite excited about it,” he went on fiddling with the seal on her desk. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this before.”

Sansa willed herself to remain calm.

“Oh?” she asked, determined to keep her voice light. “I didn’t realize you felt that way.”

“I have,” he answered deeply, heat building in his grey eyes. “I have for so long.”

Sansa bit the inside of her cheek to stop crying. Jon set the seal down and threw his hands up in the air.

“Of course, I still have to ask you.”

Sansa looked at him now, confusion writ upon her face.

“What do you mean, ask me?” she said. “Surely, you don’t need my permission, you’re a-a prince now.”

“Well I’m not going to drag you to the godswood against your will,” Jon answered with a chuckle, though the barest hint of a blush undermined his confidence.

Sansa red brows knitted together in confusion, working to make sense of what her cousin just told her.

“Jon,” she began slowly, uncertain. “Are you – Are you asking to marry _me?_ ”

Jon swept to her side as their eyes connected and grabbed her hands in his.

“Sansa,” he replied with a smile. “I would never marry anyone else.”


	5. Straight into Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Jon and Sansa before finding out R+L=J "Sansa new, probably better than most, that people can bring out the worst in you, yet there are some who bring out the best, and then there's the weirdest type, remarkably rare and inevitably addictive: the ones who bring out everything, they make you feel so alive and brave that you'd go straight into hell if that gives you a life together"

Sansa knows it is sinful. She knows the way goose bumps rise on her skin every time he lays a gloved hand on her shoulder is not quite sisterly. And the way her back arches when they are together late at night alone in his room is quite the opposite of _sisterly._ What she and Jon have, it was no better than the queen and the kingslayer. And yet…

Sansa has never felt so much herself as when she is with Jon. She was but a child when she went South, and for the longest time she was no one at all but what others told her to be. With Jon she is a wolf, she is wild and regal and a _Stark._

And Jon, well she knows that he is the same with her. She sees it in his eyes when their gaze meets across the courtyard, him talking to bannermen, and her minding the household. His grey eyes are a storm of lust and shame and as Sansa’s heart beats wild she thinks she knows for the first time what her father always meant by the wolf’s blood.

Jon is her pack, her mate, and the gods have reunited them for a reason. Sansa knows it in her heart. The world may not see it yet, but she would walk through seven hells before she gave him up.


	6. Modern AU 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Can you write please, about sansa and jon having a secret relationship because he is their foster brother . And everyone learn their relationship because one day jon has an accident and when he woke up the first thing he ask is "where is sansa ?"

Jon and Sansa were never close as children. She was Taylor Swift and cheer tryouts and he was Hozier and staying late in the library.

Her father and mother constantly reminded her: Jon was part of the family now. Ever since his mother died in that car accident when he was eight and his father’s family showed no willingness to take him in.

“Why can’t you just make an effort, San?” Robb would ask her. “He’s a great guy, if only you got to know him.”

“It’s not like I _don’t_ like him,” Sansa huffed reading over her chemistry text book at the dining room table. “It’s just not exactly like we have anything in common.”

Jon for his part, didn’t exactly put in a huge amount of effort with Sansa either. Whether he thought her shallow, or he just didn’t have time for his best friend’s younger sister, he certainly wasn’t about to go out of his way to forge a deep, sisterly bond with her the way he had Arya.

“Why do you hate her so much?” the younger Stark daughter asked him one day, leisurely munching an apple on his bed as he typed up an essay at his desk.

Jon sighed and removed his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose.

“It’s not that I hate her,” he replied. “She’s just … not the same as you and me, you know?”

His little sister sighed and took another loud chomp of her apple and asked him no more about it.

Surprisingly though, it was the two siblings who had the least in common that ended up as the only ones to get into Oldtown. Not surprising, really. After all, they were the two who committed the most to studying. Was it any wonder they would both get into the best university in Westeros?  
“Take care of her, alright mate?” Robb asked him a few days before Sansa flew out.

Jon grimaced, grateful his brother couldn’t see him through the phone.

“Of course I will,” he answered. “We may not be close, but she’s still my foster sister.”  
Ned and Cat made sure she had Jon’s number before they sent her off, and begged her to call her foster brother when she got to Oldtown. Family is family, after all, they said.

The Starks didn’t put much stock into the relationship however once classes started up.

Sansa was constantly posting pictures of her new sorority, her new sisters, Margaery, and Mya, and Myranda.

And Jon rarely, if ever, mentioned his sister on the phone. He was far too busy to worry about a stupid freshman, they assumed. He was a TA in Professor Lannister’s Westerosi History lecture class and he had his own life with Sam and the lads.

Indeed, if it wasn’t for the fact that they arrived on the same flight home for winter break, you wouldn’t have even been able to tell they went to the same university.

As soon as they were home, they spent the same minimum amount of time interacting as always. Sansa strung popcorn garlands with Mum and Arya, barely sparing a shrug when they asked her if she and Jon had hung out at all her first semester.

They did all the usual Stark holiday family things, crowding into the minivan to get a tree together and singing carols around the neighborhood, but it seemed obvious that college hadn’t changed a thing for Jon and Sansa’s brother-sister dynamic.

In fact, it wasn’t until they were well into the Spring, when Jon and Sansa had returned to Oldtown and Robb was back at UN-White Harbor, that the Starks got their first inkling that the status quo had shifted.

Ned got the call while still at the office. There had been some sort of car accident and Jon was in the hospital. He barely heard the words “unconscious” and “surgery” before he was calling Robb to book a flight and Catelyn to get the kids ready for a trip south.

The entire clan flew out by the end of the day. The family met up with Robb at the airport and Cat hugged her son, who was clearly trying to contain his tears to appear strong. Sansa, surprisingly, was not there to greet them.

“Isn’t that typical,” Arya muttered harshly.

“Arya,” Cat chided.

“What?” Arya asked. “She probably heard the crash wasn’t fatal and decided it meant she could hit the Lambda Alpha Nu mixer by 10 p.m. It’s not like she really cares about Jon anyway.”

Ned hushed her, but didn’t correct her. He knew Sansa was a good girl, but it wasn’t as if she ever developed the familial bond with Jon that the rest of the Starks had. And he _had_ told her that Jon wasn’t in critical condition and was expected to make a full recovery.

Imagine the family’s surprise however when they arrived at the hospital to find Sansa already in the waiting room. Their perfectly put together eldest daughter was somewhat of a mess when her family arrived. She had mascara rubbing off beneath her eyes and her auburn hair was in desperate need of a brush.

“Oh my gods!” she shouted upon seeing them, desperately rushing into her parents’ arms. “I’m so sorry I didn’t pick you up at the airport, I must have lost track of time.”

“It’s fine, sweet girl,” Ned calmed her, running a hand through her tossled hair. “We’re here now. It makes me glad that you were here to greet us, here with Jon. I know that you’re not the closest, but you clearly know what family means to us.”

Sansa looked ready to say something, but instead shut her mouth and nodded wearily.

“It’s been quite a rough night,” she answered instead. “But the doctors say Jon should be waking up within the next three to four hours.”  
Catelyn breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed a comforting hand along Sansa’s arm.

“That’s good to hear,” she told her. “You’ve been here long enough, why don’t you go back to the house and wash up and you can be back before Jon wakes up all nice and fresh.”

Sansa ran a hand through her tangled hair and pursed her lips.

“Yeah, I suppose that’s a good plan,” she said. “He’s in room 241 if you want to see him. He won’t be up for a few hours though.”

Ned nodded and Catelyn shooed her out the door.

“What a sweet girl that one,” Ned said with a note of pride, ushering the family up to the second floor.

As it turned out it was a much shorter wait than expected. It wasn’t even two hours before the doctor came out to get the Stark family, telling them that Jon was waking up if they wanted to see him.

The entire clan stuffed themselves into the sterile white hospital room where Jon lay in a bed hooked up to a monitor.

A long gash ran down his face, stitched up forehead to cheek, and he was far too pale to be mistaken for healthy.

Slowly however, his eyes fluttered open. The Starks crowded around his bed instinctively. His grey eyes scanned over them all silently, but his first words were quite unexpected.

“Where’s Sansa?” he asked hoarsely.

“Oh my gods, he’s got brain damage!” Arya exclaimed.

“Hush, Arya,” Catelyn commanded sternly, though her brows furrowed in confusion as well as she turned back to Jon. “She was here all night, but we told her now that we got here she could go home and wash up…”  
“She was here all night?” Jon smiled in a fashion that, if the Starks didn’t know him so well, one would describe as dreamily.

“Okay,” Robb finally interjected. “What the hell is going on? You come out of a coma and the first person you ask after is Sansa?”

“He was asleep for five hours Robb, that’s not considered a coma, that’s called anesthetic wearing off,” Bran said plainly.

“Regardless,” Robb dismissed his younger brother. “What’s going on with you and Sansa?”

The entire room turned to look at the door at the sound of a splash. Sansa stood in the doorway, her hair still wet from the shower she hurried through and a cup of hospital coffee splattered across the floor.

“You told them?!” she asked Jon, marching straight past her family to get to his bedside. “I thought we agreed we wouldn’t tell them until Landing Day this summer, so we could do it _together,_ in person.”

“Sansa…” Jon whispered in warning.   
Sansa though ignored her beleaguered foster brother and instead turned to her family throwing her hands up in the air.

“Fine,” she said. “He’s right, we’re dating. We have been for three months now.”

“You’ve what?!” Arya and Robb yelled simultaneously.

Catelyn clutched one hand to her heart and another to Ned’s forearm. The Stark patriarch, meanwhile, looked close to ill himself.

“Are you going to get married?” Rickon asked, obliviously. “Will there be cake?”

Sansa suddenly looked very unsure of herself turning back to look at Jon, who had buried his face in his hands in embarrassment.

“Like I was going to tell you,” he managed to say. “I hadn’t told them, I just woke up saying your name.”

“You did?” Sansa asked her lips turning upwards in a soft smile. “While that’s actually rather sweet.”

“I’m sorry, but can we get back to this whole incest situation going on here,” Arya snarked, waving her hand about in a gesture toward Jon and Sansa.

Jon grabbed Sansa’s hand at the edge of the hospital bed.

“It’s not incest, Arya,” he said resolutely. “I’m her foster brother.”

“And besides,” Sansa added. “You all know Jon and I never really looked at each other as siblings.”  
“Well yeah, but we just thought that’s cause you didn’t like each other,” Robb said, still in shock.

Sansa scoffed in reply.

“Are you kidding me, a super gorgeous, brooding older boy moves into the room next door and I’m not going to like him?” she said. “But you all kept saying he was one of the family now and so I kept my distance.”

“Yeah, and I’ve had a crush on Sansa since she was 13,” Jon added, blushing as Sansa threw her head around to look at him in surprise.

“You’ve been dating since she was _13?_ ” Catelyn asked, blanching.

“No, gods no,” Jon answered quick to appease his foster mother. “It wasn’t until we were both so far away from home and started spending some real time together.”

“And you remember Joffrey right?” Sansa picked up. “That jerk frat boy I dated at the beginning of last semester? While he totally ditched me at this party after I wouldn’t, well… that doesn’t matter. But anyway, Jon came to pick me up and we ended up watching movies at his place, and then he ended up coming to my sorority bake sale the next day, and we started hanging out more…”

“Why didn’t you tell us, love?” Ned asked.

Catelyn nodded in agreement.

“You two were home for all of Christmas and you didn’t say a word,” she said.

“We weren’t dating then,” Jon answered, clasping Sansa’s hand tightly. “We were hanging out a lot, but I think we were both afraid that if it went any further you would all hate us.”

The mood of the room suddenly seemed to break as Catelyn burst into tears. Sansa and Jon both cringed, but the next moment the Stark matriarch was at Jon’s bedside and had her arms thrown around her wounded son.

“We could never hate you,” she said. “You’re family! Both of you! And if this is what makes you happy, of course we support it. It may take some adjustment, but we’re here for you two.”  
The other Starks nodded at them both and Sansa and Jon smiled at each other before motioning their family in for one great group hug.

“Besides,” Bran said as he wheeled his chair out of the family lovefest. “The sexual tension was rather obvious.”  
The entire family looked at the middle child in wonder for a moment.

“What, am I seriously the only one to notice?” he said.


	7. Rhaegal and Ghost play matchmaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Can you please do something where Jon denies his feelings for Sansa and says that Rhaegal and Ghost only likes her because she's nice that's why they're following her around and are snapping at any man/suitor who wish to talk to her. Pretty please?

Jon thinks he’s fairly good at hiding his feelings after all these years. There are many of his men who say he is an enigma, that there commander’s face is made of stone for all the emotion it betrays. Unfortunately for Jon, being a warg means he has animal companions that betray his feelings all too clearly sometimes.

That is why Sam looks at him with a smug sort of smirk across his wide face as Rhaegal follows Sansa like a lap dog would across the courtyard as she manages the affairs of House Stark.

It is quite strange to see a dragon following a lady. Rhaegal is far too large for the courtyard now and she keeps her green tail tucked beneath her to save space, though the awkward dragging of her leathery wings against the ground slightly undoes her work.

Still the fearsome dragon seems entirely content to wedge herself behind the Lady of Winterfell. Sansa for her part, has grown accustomed to Rhaegal’s doting behavior, and manages to ignore the look of wide-eyed fear on the steward’s face as she goes over their food stores with him while Rhaegal buries her scaly snout in Sansa auburn hair.

Jon looks over at Sam to see him still smirking.  
“Shut up,” he says to his friend.

“I didn’t say anything,” Sam replies innocently. “It just seems the beast has taken a great liking to our lady.”

“While she’s a likeable lady,” Jon sputters. “Perhaps-perhaps it’s like the tales of old, where maidens are the only ones to enchant a unicorn. Perhaps it’s like that.”

Sam’s grin widens.

“But Rhaegal’s a dragon,” he says.

Jon huffs and turns to go back inside.

“I know what she is,” he grumbles.

Ghost is the next to one to betray him. And he can’t help but glare at the treasonous wolf as Ghost pads silently up to the high table at supper and curl up at Sansa’s feet instead of Jon’s as he usually does.

Sansa smiles and congenially lowers a hand to pet his soft white fur, before turning her attention back to her meal.

Across the hall, Jon catches Tormund’s eyes, his brows waggling at him as he takes a long drag of wine.

Jon scowls at him and resumes conversation with his sister-cousin.

For the next few weeks, more people seem to take notice of the Bastard Prince’s creatures taking a special interest in their Lady. It is hard to ignore with Rhaegal conspicuously flying circles above the godswood every time Sansa prays and Ghost spending more time at the foot of Sansa’s bed than his own more nights than not now.

It doesn’t get truly bad though until the suitors start showing up.

Harrold Hardyng, Sansa’s once-betrothed, is the first to arrive at Winterfell. There is a grand procession to greet him at the gates, as is befitting the heir to the Vale of Arryn. Jon stands stolidly beside his cousins with Rhaegal behind him, her long tail swirled lazily about his legs.

Ser Harry immediately kneels before Sansa, kissing her hand like a knight in one of her stories.

A low, lethal sound emanates from the dragon’s stomach and it is impossible to miss the steam unfurling from her nose.

There is a long moment of awkward silence as Ser Harry’s eyes widen and the horses from the Vale whinny and stomp their hooves with their knights still astride them.

Sansa breaks the silence by laughing.

“Forgive Rhaegal, Ser,” she says, smiling at Harry sweetly. “She is very protective of her master and I think she feels slighted you did not greet him first.”  
Harry smiles, mollified, though still slightly wary.

“Of course, my lady,” he responds with a gallant bow. “How can I blame her, when she has such a legendary warrior to serve?”

He gives another little bow to Jon and the entire courtyard bursts into uncomfortable laughter and a smattering of clapping.

Jon manages a slim grin, but he can’t seem to keep the smile on his face for long.

When Prince Trystane writes of his intentions to visit Winterfell, somehow managing to work in at least three references to the eldest Stark sister’s beauty in his diplomatic letter, Jon thinks it better to fly Rhaegal on a trip North to checkup on the wildling settlements in the Gift.

Unfortunately, he didn’t think to bring Ghost.

When he arrives back home, it’s to a round of solemn faces at Sansa’s council meeting.

He quickly sloughs off his heavy riding cloak, hurrying to his seat at Sansa’s side.

“What is it?” he asks worriedly. “Was Prince Trystane ungallant toward you?”

He takes her hand, but Sansa shakes her head emphatically.

“Oh no, it wasn’t that, it’s just…” she wavers and looks to Arya.

“Your direwolf nearly bit off the prince’s hand,” his younger sister says bluntly.

Jon’s face flushes crimson in embarrassment.

“I am so sorry,” he says immediately. “He’s never done something like that before, unprovoked I mean.”

“Oh no,” Sansa lays a pale hand over his own and he hopes she can’t tell the way his blush intensifies. “It wasn’t so bad really. He didn’t even take a finger! It’s just that, well, the prince was rather angry. I’m afraid it took quite a bit of cajoling to get him settled before he left…”

Jon’s stomach drops and he hopes desperately that “cajoling” didn’t include an acceptance to the prince’s marriage offer.

Ghost harrumphs at his side and circles around before laying down between Jon and Sansa’s feet.

Jon purses his lips as he looks down at the wolf.

“I’ll see he’s punished, Sansa,” he says. “I promise you that. He’ll spend the next few days in the kennels by his lonesome and if he even thinks about going for a hunt…”  
“Oh there’s no need for that,” Sansa says. “I know he didn’t mean any harm by it, he was just being overprotective…”

“Oh honestly!” Arya interrupts, clapping her hands down against the table. “Can we stop pretending here and address the real issue at hand?”  
Jon looks around the table in confusion. The Lady Brienne avoids his eyes and Sam shoots him a half-hearted smile, while Lord Davos looks thoroughly uncomfortable along with Lord Manderly.

“What do you mean?” he asks cautiously.

“I mean, your animals are even more jealous of Sansa’s suitors than you are!” Arya practically shouts, reinforcing Jon’s fading blush. “And they’re running half our allies out the doors of Winterfell.”

“I-I assure you that’s not the case,” Jon answers, glancing at Sansa who seems to be avoiding his eyes.

“It does seem,” Lord Manderly clears his throat for courage. “That the animals are having a certain impact on the Lady’s marriage prospects.”  
“They’re just protective!” Jon insists. “They see Sansa as family, just as I do.”

Arya snorts.

“Nymeria, Shaggy and Summer never seem to have any problems,” she says.

Jon is ready to argue again before Sam interjects in that soft way of his.

“Perhaps it would be better if we were to put aside outside marriage propositions,” Sam suggests, burying his hands in his maester’s sleeves as he is wont to do when uncomfortable.

Jon’s heart immediately lightens at the news, but his head knows the consequences should the North fail to solidify their relationship with the South.

“But Sansa needs a Southron house to pacify my lady aunt,” he replies sullenly. “If it is truly Rhaegal and Ghost that are the problem I can go to King’s Landing until a betrothal is made.”  
“Don’t be daft,” Arya rolls her eyes and tips her chair back on its back two legs.

Jon’s brow furrows in confusion before Sansa finally speaks up.

“I think what they’re trying to say,” she says, finally looking up at Jon. “Is that outside betrothals are not truly an option anymore.”

She lowers a hand to scratch below Ghost’s chin and the direwolf leans in to her as if he was a pup once more.

“Besides, it seems our animal friends, have already played matchmaker for us,” she says, smiling shyly up at him.

Jon mouth hangs agape for a full minute unsure of what to say. He looks about the council, most of whom seem very uncomfortable to be present at what is essentially a marriage proposal, though Sam smiles at him reassuringly.

“You don’t have to let my beasts back you in to any such thing, my lady,” Jon tells her, falling back on formality.

Sansa laughs and it is the brightest sound Jon has ever heard.

“I would not ask if I didn’t want to, Jon,” she says. “I decided long ago that no one would make me marry against my will again, so trust me when I say that I want this.”  
Jon’s heart nearly leaps out of his chest at the news, and Ghost leaps quite literally off his spot on the floor and into the queen’s lap, though of course he is so large that the force of him knocks her chair clean over.

The entire council stands in worry, including Jon, but Sansa merely laughs on the floor as the enthusiastic direwolf licks her face. Their attention all turns to the outside as a roar comes from the window. Rhaegal clearly wanted in on the excitement as well.

“You will of course have to gain a little more control over your animals’ emotions,” Sansa says from the floor hugging Ghost to her chest and smiling at him.

Jon feels his heart close to bursting as he smiles back.

It’s true, Jon Snow is a solemn man. It can be difficult for even the most perceptive of men to see into his mind. But luckily his menagerie of magical creatures are not so good at hiding their love.

It is not so much a curse as he once thought it was, he thinks, as Sansa balances baby Lynara on Ghost’s excited (but patient) back, while Lyanna and Jocelyn giggle as they slide down Rhaegal’s slick wings.

No, he thinks to himself, he is actually quite lucky that his animals know when to show the feelings he himself is too shy to admit to.


	8. A Political Betrothal, a Marriage of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: They find out Jon's parentage and it's decided Jon and Sansa should get married since they're cousins and could rule together; they have feelings for each other but have fought against them because they think it's impossible for the other one to feel the same way. They wed and when they go to their chambers for the bedding Jon can't stand it anymore and stops fighting his feelings so he kisses her desperately after closing the door. Feelings confession and wedding night. Thank you xoxo

It took them three whole days after Jon’s true parentage was revealed for the council to suggest he marry Sansa.

“She’s my sister,” he told them, stubbornly avoiding eye contact with the girl in question.

“She is the true daughter of Lord Eddard Stark, something you can no longer claim,” Lady Maege insisted.

Just like her daughter that one, every word out of her mouth was as blunt as lead.

“Besides which, you now have a true claim to the Seven Kingdoms,” Lord Davos continued.

“I don’t want the Seven Kingdoms,” Jon reminded them.

“What you _want_ is not the point,” Davos said, somewhat regretfully. “What we _need_ is as many men as we can get to fight the Others when they come, and we’ll have plenty more if we manage to take the Iron Throne. Her ladyship is kin to the Lord of the Vale and the Lord of the Riverlands. If you were to marry her than you would earn the loyalties of three kingdoms without a drop of blood shed.”

Jon pounded his fist on the table in frustration.

“I will not force Sansa to marry again,” he told them. “She has been used quite enough as it is.”  
“You speak of me as if I am not here,” Sansa finally spoke up, catching Jon’s eye.

“I have been used, it’s true,” she said. “I’ve been a pawn to Joffrey, to the Tyrells … to Littlefinger. But I would not be used again. You told me when you saved me from Baelish that my next marriage would be my choice.”  
Sansa reached out and grabbed her now-cousin’s hand.

“Let this be my choice.”

Preparations went ahead and Jon lived in denial all the while. It would not be the magnificent celebration that Joffrey Baratheon and Margaery Tyrell had when they wed, they were at war after all. But it was a royal wedding nonetheless, and it had to make a statement that Jon had taken Sansa Stark, daughter of Lord Ned Stark, niece of Lord Edmure Tully, and cousin to Lord Robert Arryn as his bride.

Thought they were now engaged, Jon found himself talking to Sansa even less than before. He could not meet her eyes. He promised to keep her safe from harm and now he was the very lustful coward he sought to save her from.

Still, Jon’s breath caught as she appeared in the godswood of Winterfell. She wore her hair loose, winter roses softly glowing in a wreath about her auburn hair. Her gown was a simple pearly grey in a Northern cut, none of the fancifulness that decorated her gown when she wed Tyrion Lannister. Indeed, the only ornament that adorned her was the Stark maiden cloak on her back.

Sansa had always been a great seamstress and it shown through on the artfully stitched direwolf across her back.

Jon shifted uncomfortably feeling the heavy velvet of his own Targaryen cloak with the fearsome red dragon stitched with rubies on his own back, a gift from Sansa earlier that morning.

She smiled shyly at Jon as she came to stand before him, Lady Brienne giving her away in lieu of the father or brothers that should have been there.

Her ivory cheeks flushed pink amidst the cold, and snowflakes settled in her hair and Jon couldn’t seem to focus as he said his vows almost robotically. Gods, was he fucked.

Sansa smiled and laughed throughout the feast, her hand never leaving his during the feast afterward. She danced with each of their bannermen in turn, including the delegates from the Vale and her Uncle Blackfish, the only delegate from the Riverlands until they won it back for Lord Edmure.

She was the perfect queen, Jon thought. He cringed all the same though when the cries for the bedding arose.

He looked to Sansa, knowing how anxious she could be about such things after all she’d gone through, but the Blackfish had his hand at her back protectively and the bannermen lifted her without undressing her as Sansa laughed gaily.

Jon was not so lucky as Val slapped his ass, tearing his eyes away from his bride. Though bedding was not a custom amongst the wildlings, they seemed to be adjusting quite well to the tradition as a spearwife tore open the top of his fine black doublet.

Lady Maege cackled as she helped lift him, and Alys Thenn (curse her) yanked down his trousers as she pushed him into the bridal chamber, leaving him in nothing but his small clothes.

He turned to see Sansa was already there, his face flushing and his hands quickly flying to hide his, um, delicate condition.

Sansa stood glowing in the firelight in nothing but her shift. Jon swallowed thickly.

“I thought…” he began. “The men weren’t undressing you as they left the hall.”

“Nor did they,” Sansa assured him softly. “A Thenn reached for my gown once, but Tormund took a swing at him. He broke his nose I think. None of them dared to touch me after that.”

Jon’s brow furrowed and he motioned quite inarticulately at her state of undress.

“I took the gown off after they dropped me off,” she smiled. “I thought it would be best. Wine?”

She went to pour him a glass before he could ask her what she meant. She handed him the goblet as his face flushed.

Jon was afraid he showed his hand rather too soon by draining the goblet in a single swig, to which Sansa laughed.

“You know—You know I wouldn’t touch you without your permission, Sansa?” he asked her earnestly, as much as it pained him to do so with her hair glowing red in the firelight against the modest white of her shift.

Sansa shook her head and smiled blithely as she came to sit at the edge of the bed.

“The entire reason we were able to marry was because the North had it known that my marriage to Tyrion was never consummated,” she said. “How would it look if we did the same?”

“But…” Jon began, but Sansa quickly crossed the room laying a finger to his lips and shushing him.

She curled a pale arm about his neck, her lithe fingers playing with the curls at the nape of his neck. He thought, very suddenly, that he had never been this close to her in his life. Never seen the way her thick, dark lashes batted against her Tully blue eyes or the way her lips curled like a bow being pulled taught as she smiled.

She leaned in and kissed him very softly against his lips.

Jon laid his hands hesitantly at the small of her waist, but after a moment he could stand it no longer. He took a small step toward her, pushing himself against her and deepening the kiss.

He could taste the wine on her tongue and the slight hint of biting sugar from the lemon cakes he insisted the cook make as a surprise for the wedding.

He heard her moan slightly as he lifted a hand to tangle in her long locks.

Jon took a quick step back, breaking abruptly from her.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I should not have—I mean, it was ungallant…”

Sansa scoffed and turned her head away.

“Tell me what you want, Jon,” she said, throwing her hands into the air haplessly. “Sometimes it seems as though you loathe me just as when were children, avoiding me at every turn. And then other times you look at me, as you did in the godswood, and I think … I thought…”

Jon cursed under his breath to see the uncertainty in her face, the self-conciousness in her eyes.

“Gods, Sansa,” he found himself saying, running a nervous hand through his own dark curls. “If you only knew … I have lusted for you since the moment we saw each other at the Vale, before I realized who you were. I have loved you since you comforted that miller’s wife who told us that it was her sons Theon killed instead of Bran and Rickon, when you had every right to celebrate that your brothers lived. And now, Sansa, now my heart belongs to you.”  
He stepped closer to her once more, so closely that he could feel her hot breath against his chest. He lifted one of her hands to lie across his chest, just above his heart.

“My whole heart, my life, it belongs to you,” he reiterated. “I know it shouldn’t, I know it’s wrong and sick, and I am still a bastard brother in your eyes, even if I am some prophecied prince to everyone else, but still it is yours.”

Sansa’s palm curled against his chest as she sighed.

“You’re right,” she said. “You’re no Targaryen king to me. You’re still that bastard boy from when we were children.”  
Jon sighed, aiming to take a step away, but Sansa’s hand at his shoulder stilled him.

“You aren’t Jon Targaryen to me, and I don’t think you ever will be,” she said looking deep into his grey eyes. The hand on his shoulder rode up to curl into his hair pulling his forehead to hers. “You are Jon Snow. You’re the boy my brother loved and trusted. The boy who was raised by my father, the most honorable man I ever met. You’re the boy who scared me as a ghost covered in flour down in the crypts and who let me climb in your bed during thunderstorms before I grew older and foolish and let propriety keep me away from you.”

Jon’s breath turned shallow as Sansa ran her second hand across his chest, her finger trailing constellations down his ribs.  
“You’re the boy who saved me in the Vale,” she whispered. “You are my home Jon Snow. And it may be wrong to love you as I do, but I have lived so long doing what propriety told me was right, now I’m going to do what my heart tells me is right.”

Her mouth crushed against Jon’s once more and this time he had no problem reciprocating as he pushed her back toward the bed.


	9. Beauty and the Wildling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Could you do a prompt where Jon is a wildling, who meets and falls in love with Queen in the North Sansa?
> 
> If you want to read a little about what I thought while writing this fic, or you just want to learn more about me and my Jon x Sansa obsession you can check out my tumblr: sassylorastyrell

Tormund catches him staring at Sansa as he is tending to his horse, and in typical Tormund fashion he hits Jon in the back to knock him out of his reverie.

Jon turns toward him and scowls, but the big man only laughs.

“She’s pretty that cousin of yours,” he says, nodding toward Sansa. “Kissed by fire.”  
Jon mumbles some form of agreement and subtly glances back at his newfound-cousin who is standing by the gates conversing with his mother and the one they call Littlefinger.

Jon scowls and tightens Greystar’s reigns in his hand. He does not like the little man, he always looks like he is up to no good sniffing about Sansa, though he is clearly too weak to steal her. His mother saw it too, obviously, as she had quickly taken his place as Sansa’s advisor as soon as his cousin arrived at the Wall, seeking sanctuary from the Kneeler King Stannis. Instead, of course, she found a long-lost aunt and a wildling cousin she never knew she had.

Even now, he sees his mother place a protective arm at Sansa’s shoulder as they speak to the Littlefucker and Jon smiles. His mother may have shed her wildling furs for the gowns of the south, but Lyanna Stark is still a spearwife at heart, ready to defend her kin.

“Are you going to steal her?” Tormund whispers a bit too loudly, leaning in close enough that Jon can smell the soured goat’s milk on his breath.

Jon scoffs in reply.

“She’s a lady, Tormund,” he answers. “And my kin besides.”  
Tormund shrugs, nonplussed.

“Wouldn’t be the first wildling to steal a daughter of Winterfell,” he tells him, a lecherous grin on his face at the memory of the old song.

Jon rolls his eyes and punches his friend in the arm. He is glad that Tormund still sees him as a wildling, too often now he gets strange looks from the people he once called friends whispering “kneeler” and “southroner” since his parents’ true origins were revealed.

It’s funny that the one person he wishes would treat him as the southron prince his mother says he is never does. Sansa still looks at him in fright sometimes, her feral wildling cousin, and he can see her discomfort every time he gets close to her.

His mother tells him not to worry too much about it. The Lady Sansa shies from all men, she says, there is good reason for it. Jon’s blood boils at the thought, that men had stolen her and mistreated her.

It was no strange thing to the wildlings, of course, for men to be rough to their women, but in the North their women can be just as rough back, they’re taught to take no shit. A woman can leave if a man treats her wrong, she can even steal her own man if she wishes.

Here these foolish kneelers teach their women to be afraid, that it is a woman’s place to fear men. Jon thinks it is all very backward for a people that call themselves “civilized.”

His mother is called away by Uncle Arthur, who the southroners call the Sword of the Morning, and Jon’s eyes track her as she reluctantly leaves Sansa’s side.

Jon sees Sansa’s shoulders tense as soon as she is alone with the Littlefucker. The man smiles lecherously and takes a step closer to the lady, a step too close Jon thinks. Even from across the yard, Jon sees the dissonance in their conversation. Baelish leans in conspiratorially and whispers to her in that strange voice of his, Sansa practically shivers and her eyes deaden the way they seem to do so often when men take the liberty of trodding all over the woman they claim fealty toward.

Jon can stand it no more and ignores Tormund to walk across the yard.

“Sansa,” he says gruffly, feeling terribly underdressed in his thick wildling furs.

His cousin turns to look at him, surprise in her eyes, but he thinks a bit of relief as well. The Littlefucker does not look as pleased, his pointy little mustache curling downward about his frown.

“Her grace,” he corrects Jon condescendingly, laying a hand on Sansa’s arm as if to somehow shield her from Jon’s uncouth ways.

Jon’s face flushes uncomfortably. He couldn’t get his tongue around these southron courtesies. They make no sense. He thinks he’d much rather be called a name than some meaningless kneeler platitude.

Sansa shakes off the little man’s hand gently.

“Prince Jon is my cousin, Lord Baelish,” Sansa rebukes him with an edge Jon had not heard in her voice often that makes him smile. “He may call me what he wishes, we are family. Now, what is it you want, Jon?”  
They both turn to look at him, Sansa questioningly, Baelish with disgust, and Jon feels trapped. He hadn’t truly thought it through when he came over here, other than to save Sansa from being alone with her “guardian.”

He struggles to remember the courtesies his mother and Uncle Arthur had been teaching him since they arrived at Winterfell, searching his mind for an excuse that would not embarrass him or his lady cousin.

“I-I was hoping you might accompany me to pray in the godswood, cousin,” he stutters.

Sansa’s eyes are kind and a weak smile flutters across her face.

“I would,” she replies. “Thank you, Jon.”

She wraps a gentle arm about his elbow, the thick embroidered grey wool of her cloak clashing with the rough animal skins he wears. She turns to Baelish and nods her head in acknowledgment.

“Thank you for your advice, Lord Baelish,” she says, though it sounds insincere to Jon’s ears. “I will be sure to think on it.”  
Jon nearly trips over his own feet with how quickly Sansa escapes the Littlefucker, though her face remains calm and dignified all the while. He wonders how she does it, keeping her emotions so under wraps like that.

Once they are away from Baelish and Jon’s blood has cooled a bit, he begins to realize the predicament he is in. Sansa’s gloved hand lies against his forearm, her fingers curled into the fur of a bear Jon had killed ages ago. He sneaks a look at his lady cousin and is struck once more by their differences.

She is so ladylike, like a princess from the songs. Her auburn hair lays in a neat northern plait against the smooth grey pelt on her cloak. And her ivory skin is dotted with light pink along her high cheekbones from the cold.

Jon, in contrast, has a good week’s worth of stubble along his chin since the last time his mother forced him to shave and he knows his dark curls are wild from the wind. Why, were it not for the way they stood so close together and the serenity on Sansa’s face as they entered the quiet of the godswood, any person to see them together would think he was some vagabond come to pillage the Queen in the North.

Sansa looks into the depths of the pool as they reach the heart tree and sighs, her breath coming out in a frosty cloud.

 _Like an ice dragon_ , Jon thinks privately, softly releasing her arm and turning toward the heart tree to hide his blush.

He kneels before the ancient oaken face and squeezes his eyes shut.

In the peace of the godswood with the old gods looking down, Jon can almost dream that he is back in the north, venturing too close to the large godswood too near Castle Black for his mother to feel safe, but doing it all the same to be close to its mystical peace.

“Why did you ask me to pray with you?”

Sansa’s wavering voice shocks him from his reverie. He half-turns to face her, though careful to keep his blush well hidden.

She remains standing, holding one gloved hand in another as she so frequently does. It must be a lady’s way of holding their hands, Jon has often thought to himself.

Jon turns back to look at the bleeding face of the heart tree and decides it’s best to tell the truth. He keeps no truck with the false words these southroners seem so fond of.

“I do not like the way that Littlefinger looks at you,” he tells her, though not meeting her eyes.

A soft smile crosses Sansa’s face and she stares down at her feet. She comes to sit next to Jon on the snowy ground, though it will get her fine gown wet, Jon knows.

“He doesn’t like to be called that,” Sansa reminds him, though there is a note of satisfaction in her voice.

“I’ve called him far worse than that,” Jon grumbles unthinkingly.

Sansa’s eyes shot up to his face and for just a moment her smile widens before she seems to remember her ways and the masks draws back across her face.

“He has done much for me. I should be grateful,” Sansa whispers, as if to remind herself more than Jon.

Jon can’t help the anger that floods through his body as his jaw clenches.

“Aye, he’s done much for you and none of it good I would say,” Jon answers her. “Wasn’t it he that sold you to that bastard you were running from when we met you? And it was him that refused to take you home after aiding in your escape from that nancy boy king, wasn’t it?”

Sansa seems shocked and Jon realizes that he probably hasn’t said more than a sentence to Sansa in any one conversation and now the first time he does and he’s yelling at her.

“I mean to say,” Jon sighs, trying to calm his anger, not for the Littlefucker but for his gentle, southron cousin. “It seems everything that man did was for his benefit, not yours.”  
Jon’s brow furrows as Sansa makes some startling choking sound and tears spring to her eyes.

Jon stands as abruptly as she does as Sansa bursts into tears and turns away from him, a hand flying to her mouth.

Jon curses under his breath. Girls didn’t cry often north of the Wall and so he finds himself ill-equipped to handle his sobbing cousin. Apparently, Jon’s wildling way was once again too blunt and frightening for Sansa’s southron sensibilities.

“I-I’m sorry,” Jon says. “I wasn’t trying to imply that any of it was your fault or anything, actually the opposite…”

Sansa quickly begins to walk toward the castle once more, sobbing out some probably very polite excuse.

Jon runs a hand through his half-frozen curls and groans in frustration.

He couldn’t seem to do anything right. He may have some fancy southron title now, but he didn’t know the fancy southron way. He wishes it were as simple as stealing her, but that would probably frighten Sansa more than win her over, and Jon is no Littlefinger.

Still, he is no better than a grumpkin to Sansa that much is clear.

But, he thinks, there may be a way to change that.

By the time dinner arrives, Jon has spoken with both his mother and Uncle Arthur and even the old maester, though the latter’s pretentiousness drove him off within the hour.

Jon pulls at his new collar uncomfortably. His mother had been quite surprised when he asked her for the jerkins and pants she commissioned for him after they took back Winterfell. She had been even more surprised when he asked her to teach him some of those fancy southron dances Sansa loves so much.

He runs one last hurried hand through his hair and tugs down the snug black leather across his chest before pushing open the door to the Hall.

Music continues to play, but Jon feels as if every eye is on him as soon as he enters. Wildlings look at him warily, but the fine lords and knights of the North have a different sort of look in their eye. Respect, intrigue, surprise, Jon knows not what, but it seems to encourage whispers.

None of their stares are half as bad though as the look his cousin gives him. He can feel her blue eyes burning a hole in the back of his head the entire way up to the front table.

He stubbornly ignores her and his mother who sits between them. He scowls at Lyanna’s smirk.

“You’ve changed, Jon,” Sansa says and Jon finally looks at her.

Baelish is on her other side, a massive frown on his pointy little face.

Jon looks down at his food and stubbornly works to remember the lessons Uncle Arthur taught him on table manners.

“Not truly, your grace,” Jon mutters nervously. “I’m still the same man I was this morning.”

His belly warms as he sees a blush rise on her face for once.

“I meant you changed clothes,” Sansa corrects him blithely.

“Ah, aye, your grace,” Jon agrees smiling.

“Sansa, please, Jon,” she says. “I thought we agreed to call me Sansa.”

Jon smile widens and he scrambles to remember some of the other things his mother taught him ladies like. Something about complimenting their names?

Jon opens his mouth to do so when he hears the beat of the northern reel beginning. It was one of the few dances his mother had been able to remember to teach him, though he was not terribly good at it as of yet. Seizing his chance, Jon stands awkwardly and abruptly. He tries not to wince with embarrassment as he approaches Sansa.

He bows in what he is sure is a poor mockery of the bow his mother taught him. Jon is surprised to find that kneeling does not make him feel weak when the gesture is toward her.

“Your grace, may I ask for this dance?” he keeps his head bowed the whole time, fearing her answer.

But she soon slides her hand into his, her palm ever so much softer than a wildling’s.

“I would love to, Jon,” she answers.

Jon looks up at her from beneath his eyelashes and she practically glows he thinks. He rights himself and swallows thickly.

He knows he should make small talk, or at least look dignified, but he is far too distracted by trying to remember the steps.

Sansa places a hand on his shoulder as he puts his on the small of her back and Jon thinks he would be incredibly embarrassed if it wasn’t for the fact the melody picked up and he quickly got caught up in his counting.

He was staring down at his feet making sure he didn’t step on Sansa’s toes when she spoke.

“I’m sorry for this morning,” she says, her brow creased in concern. “I was terribly rude.”

Jon laughs dryly.

“I don’t think you could be rude if you tried, Sansa,” he says.

He likes the way her name flows on his tongue. It sounds like a flower blooming after winter. _San-sa._

“I was,” his cousin insists, shaking her head slightly. “I shouldn’t have ran off, it was just-just…”

“I was rough,” Jon answers for her. “I was blunt, and uncouth and _wild.”_

“You were kind,” Sansa corrects him.

Jon’s eyes snap up from his moving feet to stare at her.

Sansa looks away, her cheeks flushing.

“All Petyr ever tells me is how grateful I should be,” Sansa admits meekly. “He says he saved me from King’s Landing, from my aunt, he was the one to bring the knights of the Vale just when we needed them… He’s right, he did do it all. He sold me to Ramsay, it’s true, but he’s apologized so often for it and he has done so much for me.”

“Petyr Baelish is a selfish cunt.”

Sansa’s eyes widen as large as saucers and Jon immediately makes it worse by cursing under his breath.

“Shit-I didn’t mean to say—that is I meant… Fuck, mother says not to swear in front of ladies, but none of the girls I know—I don’t mean you’re strange of course…”

He’s shocked to hear Sansa laugh and he smiles in bewilderment.

“You’re right, you are blunt Jon Snow,” Sansa answers him and she tenses in his arms. “I wasn’t crying because of your brusque manner, I was crying because I _loathe_ Petyr. He whored me out to my brother’s killers, and still he lords his aid above me as if I owe him the world, as if I owe him my very self. But Petyr did not rise in the world for his lack of charm. He can be so persuasive, and even more persistent. You’re the first one who hasn’t made me feel as if I’m going mad to not want him or his help in my life anymore.”  
Jon can’t help the protective way his arm tightens about Sansa’s waist and his grey eyes cut like steel up to Littlefinger at the high table. The man glares at him and Jon glares right back.

“You don’t owe him a thing,” Jon answers. “You deserve a proper southron knight like in Uncle Arth—like in Ser Arthur’s stories.”  
Sansa huffs and he does not think he could be any more surprised than when her grip on his arm tightens, pulling him closer. He can feel her warmth where their bodies touch and the gentle sway of her rich velvet skirts against his legs.

“I have had my fill of southron knights, Jon Snow,” she tells him. “I have loved the gallant Knight of Flowers who never lifted a finger to help me. I loved a golden prince who had me beaten bloody before the court. Ramsay said he was a true northerner, but he had none of the honor that my father or my brother Robb had. I am done with southroners and northerners alike and all of their gallant words and fancy lies.”

Jon’s breathing shallows as the song ends. Sansa’s hair lies long and shining like fire in the light of the hall and her blue eyes glint like hard ice. He is beauty and ferocity, and for a moment, she even seems a wildling.

Jon bows before her in thanks for the dance and is struck by the oddity of him being the courteous one and she the wild one.

“If that’s how you feel, you never need rely on a man again, your grace,” he says, using her title not out of formality but out of respect. “Your family is with you now and my mother and I pledge fealty to your cause as long as we both shall live. But you are wrong you know.”

Sansa looks at him in wonder and he leans in close, feeling brazen now that he knows she does not mind his discourteous wildling ways.

“It doesn’t matter if they’re from King’s Landing or the Dreadfort,” he whispers in her ear. “They’re all from the south. Perhaps your problem could be solved by finding a true northerner.”


	10. Ser Loras's Excellent Taste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Sansa explaining to Jon why he shouldn't be jealous of the knight of the flowers "Jon, how can you be jealous of Loras Tyrell of all people?! I have more reasons to be jealous of him talking to you than you of him spending the whole day with me!"

It’s strange to think that once upon a time Sansa thought herself in love with Loras Tyrell. He was all she ever dreamed of as a girl, with his gilded armor and pretty curls. But that was the Sansa of old. That Sansa had been seduced by Joffrey’s good looks, and the charms of the south.

Sansa is no longer that girl. She has learned the value of simple kindness over courtesy and the way ugliness can hide behind a pretty face. Truth be told, she’s much more partial to boiled leather and solemn grey eyes as of late.

But just as Sansa’s grown, so has Ser Loras. He is no longer a golden knight of summer. He lost people, just like her. His father, Margaery, Renly … Renly perhaps most of all.

He also saw battle. True battle. He and Sansa were both there the night the Battle of the Blackwater burned the bay with green with wildfire, but Loras was also at the Siege of Dragonstone where he himself was injured, and he was there to see the city itself burn with Cersei Lannister’s wrath.

All of things, all of these tragedies, they’re reflected in his eyes. Sansa can see herself in those eyes and it is for that reason that she feels so close to him when she is forced to return to King’s Landing to finish treating with Queen Daenerys.

The Red Keep is not what it once was. It is no longer the intimidating palace of Sansa’s girlhood, but is instead a hub of creativity as the finest craftsman in the Seven Kingdoms work to rebuild it for the new age.

Yet Sansa cannot escape the memories of court, and Loras is one of the few people remaining who remember the Lannisters’ reign of terror as well as she does.

They find themselves drawn to each other and often wander the garden arm in arm (something Sansa is sure her younger self would be extremely jealous of).

They speak of simple things. Sansa tells tales of rebuilding Winterfell and Loras shares letters from Willas and Garlan back in Highgarden. There is a heavy silence where stories of Margaery and Robb may once have been, but neither of them ever speaks of it, it doesn’t need to be said.

It’s Loras who first points out that not everyone finds their newfound friendship comforting.

“Your cousin is glaring at me again,” He whispers to her, his brown eyes mischievously straying upward toward the balcony above them.

Sansa follows his gaze to find Jon, Daenerys, and Asha in deep conference on the stone terrace.

Jon looks away as soon as he catches Sansa’s gaze, but it is not quick enough to hide his staring entirely.

She blushes and tucks a strand of auburn hair behind her ear.

“He worries for me,” she says. “He knows how southron men have treated me before.”

Loras arches a brow and smirks.

“And he thinks me a threat to your honor?” he asks her. “Gods, it’s a good thing you’re the one really running the north if he’s that dense.”  
Sansa smacks his arm and gasps.

“You shouldn’t say such things, Loras,” she tells him. “Jon is very intelligent. He’s a great warrior and an excellent commander who cares for his people.”

“And it probably doesn’t hurt that he’s easy on the eyes,” Loras adds suggestively.

Sansa blushes bright red and ducks her head to hide it.

“That’s not what I meant,” she admonishes.

“I’m sure it wasn’t,” Loras laughs. “But I mean it. He’s terribly handsome. He would be even more so if he ever smiled.”

Sansa doesn’t bother to say that she likes his solemn face quite well, but that his smiles, rare as they were, were something to behold.

Instead she shakes her head and carries on through the gardens.

By dinnertime she’s practically forgotten the incident entirely, until she arrives to Jon’s rooms to find him sitting rather nervously, his face burdened with thought and an air of the uncomfortable.

She stops short just before the table and looks at him in alarm.

“What’s the matter?” she asks hesitantly.

Jon looks up in surprise, as if he hadn’t quite realized she’d arrived. But his face quickly changes to quiet determination as he gestures to the seat beside him.

“I wanted to speak with you about a matter that concerns me,” he begins, clearing his throat awkwardly.

“What is it?” she asks, worried, slowly sinking into the seat. “Has the Dragon Queen broached the topic of my marrying again?”

“No-well, yes, but that’s not my concern,” Jon dismisses. “I wanted to speak with you about the Knight of Flowers.”

He says it so solemnly that Sansa can’t help but laugh a little, to which Jon looks very confused.

“You mean Loras?” she asks. “You’re concerned about Loras?”

“Yes,” Jon replies, his brow furrowing. “I know he’s handsome Sansa, but Ser Loras is a Tyrell and his family has a known reputation for scheming. They’ve been searching for a way into Queen Daenerys’ good graces and it may seem like a prime opportunity to marry one of her key allies.”

Sansa tries to keep a straight face, but she’s not sure she succeeds. Jon looks even more frustrated that his cousin does not seem to be taking this seriously.

“I assure you, Jon, Loras has no intention of seducing me,” she says, a grin playing at her lips.

“This isn’t a joke, Sansa,” Jon snaps. “I don’t want him to take advantage of you.”

Sansa lays a hand to her lips to hide her laughter, before deciding she’s had enough fun with poor Jon.

“Jon, gods, how to explain this to you?” she says, laying a delicate hand over one of his on the table. “Ser Loras is not the sort to seduce young women, _any_ woman for that matter.”

“I know it may not seem that way, Sansa, but men can be deceiving,” Jon reiterates, desperately trying to convince her.

Sansa rolls her eyes and tries to suppress the frustration she feels. Of course she knows men can be deceiving. If anyone should know that it should be her.

Unfortunately, the eye roll also serves to enhance Jon’s own frustration.

He grows red as a beet and stands abruptly.

“Sansa, I know you and Ser Loras have grown very close, but you must not make any presumptions of marriage or elopement,” he says in what Sansa knows to be his ‘lord commander voice.’ “The truth is that Queen Daenerys has made it a condition of the Northern peace treaty that you marry into the royal family and she has insisted on myself as the bridegroom.”

Sansa’s mouth falls open in shock. Jon stubbornly avoids her eyes, though the embarrassment is clear in his persistent blush.

She shouldn’t truly be surprised. Daenerys has been pushing for Sansa to remarry since the North yielded their forces to her.

So far, Sansa had managed to avoid the question, but she knew the issue couldn’t be put off for much longer. Truly, she’d begun to think of nominating Jon herself.

There was no man she trusted so much as him and truth be told she had not thought of him as a brother in a very long time.

Still to see Jon’s face now, the idea clearly hadn’t occurred to him.

But then something else clicked into place about the entire conversation.

“Gods, Jon! Are you—are you jealous?” Sansa exclaimed, a smile spreading uncontrollably across her face.

Jon’s hands curled into fists at his side and his blush grew so high that it brushed his dark curls.

“I merely didn’t wish you to involve yourself with someone when there could be no chance of your marrying him,” Jon says. “You know I want nothing more than your happiness Sansa, but Daenerys doesn’t trust the Tyrells. She would never allow you to marry Ser Loras. I know you don’t wish to marry me either, but the marriage would be in name only and it would stop any questions of your loyalty…”  
Jon trails off as he notices Sansa’s shoulders shaking and her head bowed, hiding her face behind a sheet of auburn hair. At first he thinks it’s from crying over her lost lover and yet another unwanted match, but when she tips her head back it quickly becomes clear that she is indeed laughing at him.

“Jon, how can you be jealous of Loras Tyrell?” she asks, practically gasping from laughter. “I have more reason to be jealous of him talking to you, than you do of him spending the day with me!”

Jon’s brow furrows in confusions before he slowly pieces it together. The laughter, Sansa’s statement about his disinterest in seducing her, the knight’s interest in talking to him.

“You-you mean to say that Ser Loras is not interested in women?” Jon stutters out, terribly embarrassed.

“Yes!” Sansa says. “Gods, he said you’d been glaring at him, but I thought it must be something he made up in his head. His…proclivities… are one of the worst kept secret in the Seven Kingdoms. You truly didn’t know?”

“I—I,” Jon attempts to recover, but it’s clear that he’s not going to live this one down.

“Hold on a moment,” he says. “You said you would have reason to be jealous of his interest in me. Does that mean that you…?”

He leaves it open-ended but Sansa merely smiles slyly and gets up to walk toward the door.

“Oh Jon,” she says. “Loras isn’t the only one who’s noticed how handsome you’ve become.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know it's been ages since I've updated, but hopefully this is the beginning of quite a few prompt fills.
> 
> As always, you can find me at sassylorastyrell on tumblr.


	11. PSL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon tries desperately to hide his love for Pumpkin Spice Lattes.

As much as he hated to admit it, Jon Snow was a mama’s boy. It was inevitable really, for so long it had been just the two of them that even now that he was grown and moved out Jon still felt the need to spend at least one day a week back at Lyanna Snow’s modest two-bedroom apartment just off Baelor Ave.

The lads would always tease him about it, but really it made sense for him to go over there every Sunday. After all, the apartment he shared with Sam didn’t have a laundry room in the building and Jon chaffed at the idea of spending hours at a time in a public laundromat. His mum had a washer and dryer hookup right in the apartment and if it gave them time to catch up and binge watch old episodes of Chopped so be it.

That Sunday started like every other Sunday, with Jon stopping in at the Starbucks around the corner from Lyanna’s apartment to grab them both coffee. Lyanna called it the “caffeine toll” for using her laundry room.

Of course, there was nothing ordinary about Pumpkin Spice Latte season in Jon’s opinion. He kept it all hush-hush of course. The guys tore the mickey out of him for spending Sundays with his mom, he couldn’t imagine if it got out that he enjoyed the most girly of all coffee-derived beverages.  That was why he only dare get it on Sundays when he was far away from his own apartment and he knew he wouldn’t be seeing the lads for the entire day.

Lyanna wasn’t exactly sensitive to her son’s PSL-addiction either, but at least Jon knew she could keep a secret.

The place was packed for 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning, maybe because of the unseasonably early snow, or maybe the draw of the limited edition fall drinks, but whatever the reason Jon wedged himself behind a stern looking business man to wait in a rather long line.

His phone began vibrating almost immediately and he wasn’t surprised to see “Mum” flash across the screen.

“Mum, I can’t really talk right now, I’m in line,” he whispered, painfully aware of his fellow customers’ eyes on him.

“Are you bringing the caffeine?” she moaned gravelly on the other side and Jon knew immediately that she probably hadn’t even pulled herself out of bed yet.

“Yeah, one black coffee and one pumpkin spice latte,” he assured her. “I got it, I’ll be there soon.”

“Bring me a cake pop as well, would you?” she said. “Mama needs her sugar.”

“Yeah, very nutritious breakfast, Mum,” he sighed. “I got to go. I’m almost to the front.”

His mother made a harrumph of agreement and Jon closed out the call, turning slightly to replace the phone in his book bag. The moment he did he couldn’t help but blush bright red.

Somehow, in the midst of his phone call, a very pretty redhead had slid up behind him in line. It was clear from her barely concealed laughter and mirthful eyes that she had heard his phone call.

“I do laundry,” he found himself blurting out in ill-conceived explanation.

“Sorry?” she asked, her delicate brow furrowing and Jon could almost kick himself.

“Why I was talking to my mum, I mean,” he continued to babble. “I don’t live with her still or anything, I live with my mate Sam. We have a flat up on 44th Street … I mean that’s beside the point, but I mean that we don’t have a washer so my mum lets me use hers. She likes coffee though, not a morning person you know? So I—I’m vastly over-explaining this aren’t I?”

She smiled and Jon noticed that she was wearing a particularly vibrant shade of pink lip gloss. It was the sort of thing that would look garish on other girls, but somehow it worked on her.

“I don’t think you need an excuse to spend time with your mum,” she said simply, before nodding ahead of him.

Jon turned around and realized with embarrassment that an impatient barista was waiting on him to order.

  
“Right,” he said, before turning to the man in the black visor. “I’ll take a venti black coffee and a venti pumpkin spice latte extra whip. Oh, and a birthday cake pop.”

He refused to look behind to see if the redhead was judging for him on his tooth-decaying order.

He continued to stubbornly avoid her gaze as he moved to the side though he could hear as she order her own PSL with a lemon loaf, but he couldn’t quite ignore her as she stood beside him waiting.

He nodded awkwardly at her and she smiled in return, clearly finding some type of amusement in his awkwardness.

He practically jumped when they called his order, quickly followed by the redhead’s. Sansa, the barista shouted.

He was nearly to the door when he felt a hand on his arm. He turned to find the redhead.

“I think our pumpkin spice lattes got mixed up,” she said, almost shyly. “I don’t get mine with extra whip.”

“Oh,” Jon said, a bit dumbfounded. “Thanks. It’s really not a big deal.”

  
“Yeah,” she admitted with a shrug. “But I wouldn’t want your mum to miss out on the extra whip cream.”

  
Jon began to laugh before quickly turning it into a faux cough. The idea of Lyanna “I like my coffee black like my soul” Snow ordering a Pumpkin Spice Latte was just too hilarious. But it was better than Sansa thinking he was the pumpkin eater in question so he merely nodded and exchanged the lattes, trying desperately not to notice the light pink lip gloss stain at the rim of the lid.

“Thanks, yeah, I bet she’ll appreciate it,” he said before nodding awkwardly once more and turning away toward his mum’s apartment building.

He cursed softly under his breath a moment later when he realized it would have been a damn good opportunity to ask for the girl’s number. He turned around, but her auburn head was already weaving its way through the crowded sidewalk away from him.

He was still kicking himself when he arrived at his mum’s apartment, coffee in hand.  
Lyanna shuffled up next to him, curly hair tied in a knot at the top of her head and pajama pants still on.

She grunted at him in greeting and swiped her coffee as he headed to the laundry room to put in a load. It was a moment later when he heard her much more alert voice yell back to him.

“Jon, why is there a phone number of a girl named Sansa written on my coffee?”


	12. We used to be friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill: In case you're looking for prompts--how about PI Jon Snow and photographer Sansa Stark working together for lawyer Tyrion Lannister?

Jon usually handled cases by himself and now he was beginning to remember why.

“I’m just saying, I feel like it’s a bit conspicuous sitting here in _your_ car,” Sansa said, taking a massive bite of her Red Vine (because snacks were essential to the stakeout experience. _C’mon, Snow._ ) “I mean, how many of these old shit-mobiles are there still in circulation anyway.”

She kicked the dashboard to emphasize her point and Jon swatted her leg away testily.

“The Le Baron is a classic car, Sansa,” Jon answered her. “Besides, not all of us had mommy and daddy to buy us a brand-new Jeep for our Super Sweet Sixteen.”

Sansa crossed her arms and shifted her gaze out the window sullenly, camera still hung around her neck.

Jon winced as he played the sentence back over in his head. He shouldn’t have mentioned her dad. Mr. Stark had been a great guy, kind of the father he never had if he was being honest. He spent pretty much every day over at the Stark house after he and Robb finished soccer practice.

But even then Sansa hadn’t been a huge fan of his, and he wasn’t a fan of hers. To him, she was always a spoiled, little, rich girl, flaunting her wealth in a way Robb never did. And to her, he was a boy from the wrong zip code, only tolerated because his mother was the sheriff.

But he was Robb’s best friend and she was Dany’s, which meant they were always hanging out together nonetheless.

That all changed after Dany dumped him, and then Robb and Mr. Stark…

Well, they didn’t really talk anymore. Sansa still ran with the rest of the 07’ers and Jon had embraced his inner loner (though to be honest it had always been lurking just beneath the surface.) He had Sam and Ghost and helping his mom out with cases. After all, it didn’t specify which Snow would be investigating on the sign for Snow Investigations.

But when Tyrion had come to him with yet another soon-to-be divorcee searching for evidence of a cheating spouse, Jon found himself in need of a photographer to nail the perv.

Why he thought of Sansa was anyone’s guess. The only thing she had in common with Nancy Drew was their fondness for plaid miniskirts. True, she was the best photographer at their school paper and the yearbook, but really it was probably because she had that expensive telephoto lens that Jon just couldn’t afford.

It certainly wasn’t because he missed her.

In any event, it was clearly a mistake. Because now they were sitting outside the skeezy motel off the bay waiting for Tyrion’s mystery divorce client for god knows how long and she wasn’t even speaking to him. Just passive aggressively eating Red Vines.

“I don’t even know why I said yes to this,” she finally snapped at him.

“Trust me, I don’t know why I asked,” he muttered.

She turned sharply to glare at him, a wave of red hair flipping over her shoulder.

“You think you’re so much better than us now, just because you sit by yourself at lunch and make snide comments about us all to your little friend,” she sniped.

“I don’t think I’m better than you all, but if I did, could you blame me?” he asked. “You all order a hundred bucks worth of food each day to the school cafeteria, just so you can flash your new AmEx to the student body, it’s pathetic.”  
“It wasn’t so pathetic when you hung out with all of us, was it?” she quickly snapped back, leaning toward him, her camera swinging angrily from her neck.

“Hey, you abandoned me, not the other way around, remember?” Jon scoffed.

“Oh please, you were out of there the minute Robb died!”

Her eyes widened as soon as the words were out of her mouth, as if she couldn’t quite believe she said them.

Jon sat back in his seat, more than a bit stunned himself. Sometimes it seemed like Sansa had forgotten about it all, the way she just carried on after Robb and Ned died.

Arya had been so depressed she’d begged her mother for a transfer just to get away, and though he didn’t see the younger kids as much, he’d heard through the grapevine that they were in therapy weekly.

But Sansa had been back to her pink cashmere sweaters and stunning smiles the day after the funeral.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you actually talk about it,” Jon mumbled, staring stubbornly at the wheel to avoid her gaze.

Still, he heard her scoff.

“You don’t just forget a double homicide,” she retorted.

Jon snuck a glance over at her just as she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. It was small, but it was the least composed he’d seen her since middle school.

He opened up his mouth to say something but the moment was quickly gone as she leaned forward with a gasp, smacking him across the chest to gain his attention.

“Oh my God, is that Cersei Lannister?” she asked in shock, quickly raising her camera.

Jon leaned across the dash to look up to the parking lot of the motel where, indeed, a furtive Dr. Cersei Lannister was making her way to a motel room, throwing nervous glances over her shoulder.

Sansa was already snapping photos of the well-coiffed socialite as she made her way to the second floor.

“You didn’t tell me this was who your mystery client was!” Sansa gasped. “This is too good. She was such a mega-bitch to me when I was dating Joff. Serves her right for Mr. Baratheon to serve her with divorce papers, I just can’t believe her own brother would represent her husband in the proceedings.”

“I can,” Jon mumbled under his breath.

Somehow Tyrion almost always managed to work a dig at his famous sister into conversation, though hiring a P.I. to catch her in the act was admittedly a bit much. Still, it explained the need for secrecy and his none-too-subtle, “you’ll know her when you see her,” comment when he inquired about the client.

Cersei finally stopped in front of Room 217 and with one last look around she knocked on the door.

Jon leaned forward and placed a hand on Sansa’s shoulder, momentarily forgetting their earlier argument.  
“Get ready, this is the money shot.”

Sansa snapped the photo the moment the door opened, though Jon was too stunned to hear the click of the camera when he saw who it was.

Rhaegar Targaryen was shirtless in nothing but a towel when he answered the door.

He pushed his wet, silver hair back and grinned at his guest, quickly ushering her into the motel. He kissed her as she walked past him in the doorway and Jon was vaguely aware of Sansa taking another photo.

No doubt, Tyrion would be pleased.

And just like that it was over. The door shut and it was once again just Sansa and Jon in the Le Baron.

Sansa slowly lowered her camera and looked at him with worry.

“God, Snow,” she said. “Are you alright? Dany told me the reason you broke up is because she found out that…”

Jon set his jaw and turned the key in the ignition, the engine revving to life.

“I think you got the shot,” he said shortly. “We don’t need to stick around until she leaves. I should get these to Tyrion ASAP anyway and you probably have—I don’t know—a party, or something to get to.”

“Jon—,” she started to say, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder, but he abruptly shook her off.

“God, Sansa, it’s fine!” he shouted. “I don’t want to talk about it and certainly not with you.”

She reeled back, hurt in her eyes, and Jon was immediately ready to take it back. But he bit his tongue instead and pulled out onto the highway.   
The last thing he wanted to do was talk about Rhaegar Targaryen, and he wasn’t about to apologize to Sansa if it meant having to talk about the thing that made bile fill the back of his throat just thinking about it.

The ride back to Snow Investigations was made in silence. At one point Sansa rolled her window down and let her hand drift along the air rushing by and Jon was immediately reminded of when she would do that very thing on late night McDonald’s runs with Robb and Dany.

The sun was sinking into the water and the red light reflected back onto Sansa’s auburn hair, making it appear even more red than it was.

As if feeling his eyes on her, she looked back at him, blue clashing with grey and Jon quickly reverted to the road.

As soon as they pulled up in front of his mom’s building he once again opened his mouth to say something to her, but she unbuckled her seat belt and pulled out the SD card from her camera.

“Get this back to me by Tuesday,” she said, handing it to him while avoiding eye contact. “I have to shoot the basketball game at four. You can just give it to me at school, but _not_ in front of anyone worth knowing. Okay, Snow?”  
He nodded dumbfounded. She quickly made her way across the street to her baby blue Jeep, her camera held in front of her like a shield.

Jon waved half-heartedly at her retreating back and made his way into the office.

He sighed as he sat down at the front desk and put the SD into the card reader attached to his laptop.

He didn’t even notice Tyrion sitting on the waiting room couch until he spoke up.

“You know, for a detective, you’re really not very observant,” he said.

Jon jumped slightly in his chair, a hand flying to his chest in a most unmanly-like way.

“Christ, you nearly gave me a heart attack,” he told him.

Tyrion jumped off the couch, making his way to stand before Jon’s desk.

He put his hands in his slack pockets and smirked.

“Was that Sansa Stark’s Jeep I saw out front?” he asked.

“I don’t ask you about how you do your business, you don’t ask me how I do mine,” Jon retorted, pulling up Sansa’s photos and transferring them, without looking, to a flash drive.

“Oh, it was business then,” Tyrion said, disappointment evident in his voice. “And here I thought it might be young love.”

Jon glared at him over his laptop and handed him the flash drive.

“Please, 07 princess isn’t exactly my type,” he said. “But she’s a much better photographer than me. I think you’ll be pleased. And don’t worry, she knows the confidentiality deal. She won’t be telling anyone about your ‘secret client’ even if your sister was a mega-bitch to her.”

Tyrion laughed, whirling the flash drive’s dangle around his finger.

“Mega-bitch,” he chortled. “That’s a new one. I like it. Tell Ms. Stark she’s really captured my sister’s essence. I’ll wire you the money tomorrow, Snow.”

Tyrion turned to leave and his hand was on the door when Jon felt the words bubble to his lips.

“Tell your brother, he’d be better served keeping his eye on Deputy Tarth,” Jon said, seeing Tyrion’s back freeze. “Turns out your sister’s not one to keep it in the family after all.”

Tyrion turned his head to face him with a tight grin.

“Confidentiality, remember?” the lawyer said.

“Of course,” Jon replied, spinning in his desk chair. “Just thought I’d remind you that this P.I. isn’t as unobservant as you give him credit for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is so inclined, check out my tumblr and other fics at sassylorastyrell


	13. Ignorance isn't bliss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill: Hiiiii could you write a fanfic that revolves around this quote Jon says to Sansa in an argument: 'I'm pushing you away because everytime you're near me... I just wanna grab you and kiss you, and the fact you're my half sister is not the problem, the problem is I don't care.'? And of course I'd appreciate a happy ending because if there isn't one what's the point? XD
> 
> Hi all, if you want to give me a follow and read some of my other fic you can find me on tumblr at sassylorastyrell as well.

Sansa didn’t know when it happened exactly. She and Jon were getting so close as they rebuilt Winterfell. He looked to her for instructions on courtesy and politics in his new positon and he aided her in hiring masons and arming the castle for the imminent backlash from King’s Landing.

Their evenings were even spent with one another. After long dinners appeasing lords and wildlings alike they would eventually retire wearily to Jon’s solar, close as it was to Sansa’s rooms. There they would talk over the day as Sansa sewed by the fire. It seemed, Jon trusted Sansa’s opinion more than any of his newfound advisors and he often shared his deepest concerns with her.

They rarely spoke of their time apart, but the conversation would often slip back into tales from their shared childhood.

They had never been close as children, but Sansa truly felt that they were close now. Jon knew her better than anyone now, even Brienne. And she knew Jon, she liked to think.

That was why it was so strange when suddenly he stopped talking to her altogether.

At first it was subtle. She would ask him for help in ordering the glass for the glass gardens and he would direct her to the Lord Steward instead. She would go to his solar after dinner and he would feign a headache.

But all too soon he was avoiding her entirely. She would wave across the courtyard and only receive a stiff nod in return before he fled to the training yard. He took to talking to Ser Davos or the Lady Lyanna instead of her at dinner, even as she sat beside him.

“Have I done something wrong?” she found herself desperately asking Brienne one day.

“I’m not sure,” the lady knight replied with a frown. “His grace is a brooding fellow, it’s hard to tell when he’s displeased and when he’s just being himself.”

Sansa bit her lip and furrowed her brow in thought. Perhaps Brienne was not the best person to ask, she didn’t truly know Jon after all. She resolved to ask Jon’s friends, few as they were, to discover if it was just her who was the cause of his recent attitude.

She didn’t know Tormund a tremendous amount. In truth, the wildling frightened her a bit with his brash demeanor and fearsome stature. Still she managed to corner him one day near the stables.

Clearly, she had surprised him because his bushy red brows flew up his forehead when he turned around to find her there.

“Girl!” he sighed in exasperation. “Don’t you know not to sneak up on a man when he’s tending his horse?”

Sansa felt a smile tug at her lips. It was refreshing to be addressed so simply without any “my lady” or “your grace” about it. But she quickly refocused on what she had come there to address.

“Tormund, I’d wondered if you noticed anything strange about Jon lately?” she asked.

“Snow?” Tormund asked in surprise. “The man’s always strange, but he hasn’t been any stranger than usual I think. I would think he would tell you before me if there was something wrong.”

Sansa flushed a bit.

“We haven’t been talking lately,” she admitted looking down at her shoes.

Tormund’s mouth screwed up into a thoughtful grimace.

“Stupid, stubborn man,” Tormund whispered harshly under his breath.

“What is it?” Sansa asked, more curious now than ever.

“I’d wager I do know what’s wrong with him,” Tormund said. “But that’s not for me to say. You’ll have to ask him that yourself, girl.”

Sansa opened her mouth to object, but Tormund lifted a hand to silence her, resolutely turning back to his mount.

Sansa left the yard feeling more confused than she had when she entered it. That night a thousand possibilities flew through her mind as she stared at Jon across the table.

Apparently, Jon noticed her gaze for he tugged on his collar and glanced up at her uncomfortably.

“Is something wrong, Sansa?” he asked.

Sansa bit her lip. It was the first time in weeks he’d spoken directly to her and she suddenly felt anger well up within her.

Wrong? He dare ask if something was wrong with her? After weeks of neglecting her, ignoring her, leaving her without her closest friend he asks if something was wrong?

“Oh, now I’m good enough to speak to?” she snaps at him.

Jon’s eyes widened in shock and the rest of the table looked up from the meal. It was practically unheard of for Sansa to say something rude, let alone address the King that way.

Jon took note of the eyes on him and swallowed hard.

“Sansa, I don’t know what you think…” he began, but Sansa wasn’t in the mood to listen to false excuses.

She stood abruptly, the men at the table standing awkwardly as well, as was custom when the lady of the house rose.

“I find I’ve lost my appetite,” she said and turned to leave the hall.

As soon as she was out of the hall she let out a shuddering, long breath and laid a cool hand on her flushed face. She had never done anything like that before. But the very idea that Jon would lie to her, that he would make her feel like the unreasonable one, well she couldn’t stomach it.

She was halfway to her room when she heard footsteps behind her.

For some reason she knew in her gut who it was. She turned toward her brother and curtsied mockingly.

“Your grace,” she said.

Jon scoffed.

“Sansa stop this, you’re acting like a child,” he said.

“ _I’m_ acting like a child!” she exclaimed stepping toward him. “You’ve been ignoring me for weeks now without any explanation.”

“I haven’t been…” he began, but then it was Sansa’s turn to scoff.

“Don’t lie, Jon, it’s beneath you,” she said.

Jon looked so hurt that for a moment Sansa was tempted to apologize. She had to remind herself that she was in the right, he had truly hurt her and if anyone should apologize it should be him.

“You’re my brother, Jon,” Sansa sighed. “We’re the only family we have left. You said yourself, we can’t let people divide us.”

Jon flinched and looked down to avoid her gaze.

Sansa set her jaw and began to turn away.

“Fine, if you want to keep pushing me away,” she said.

She was stopped by a strong hand on her forearm. Sansa couldn’t stop herself from flinching in turn, though she knew however angry he may be Jon would never hurt her like Ramsay or the King’s Guard had.

Nevertheless, Jon was quick to release his grip. She turned to face him, but he still wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“I don’t want to push you away,” he said softly, staring resolutely at the ground.

It reminded Sansa of the way he used to behave when they were children, when he was just a shy, serious young boy filled with shame over something that was never his fault.

Her gaze softened and despite her best judgment her vision began to cloud with tears.

“Then why are you?” she asked, her voice cracking.

The sound finally pulled Jon’s gaze upward and his eyes were as broken as hers. He reached a hand out to wipe away the tears now openly falling down her face, but seemed to think better of it, and instead took a decisive step backward.

Sansa nearly screamed in frustration.

“Why are you doing this, Jon?” she cried. “You claim to care for me, you claim you don’t want to push me away, but that’s exactly what you’re doing! Why, Jon? Why don’t you want me anymore? Why would you take away the last bit of family I have?”  
She rushed toward him and began to pound on his chest, her pale fists making little real impact beyond expressing her fury. Jon grabbed her wrists gently, but firmly and held them in front of her.

“Because!” he shouted, pulling her up short. “Because every time you're near me... I just want to grab you and kiss you.”  
He stopped for a moment, shock from his own confession and in anticipation of Sansa’s reaction.

Sansa found she could not think and they merely stood in the abandoned hallway, icy breath the only sound in the world.

Then something switched in Jon’s face and he seemed to be resolved. He released one wrist and lifted a hand to cup her cheek.

“And the fact you're my half-sister is not the problem, the problem is I don't care,” he finished huskily, the anger all but gone, and in its place something new and unknown.

Sansa stared at him with wide blue eyes. She felt her heart was liable to beat right out of her chest.

Jon’s eyes searched her face before he took a shuddering breath, as if coming back to reality. His hand fell from her cheek as he stumbled back, once more reverting to avoiding eye contact.

“You don’t have to say anything right now—you—you shouldn’t say anything now,” he said. “But please know that you _are_ wanted.”

At this he looked back up at her, grey eyes catching blue.

“You are always wanted, Sansa,” he repeated. “And I will always be your family.”

He walked away before Sansa even had the chance to speak, leaving her in the hall with tears quickly freezing to her cheeks and her mouth agape in shock.

Jon loved her. No. He was _in_ love with her.

It was wrong. It must be. It was a love condemned by the gods. It had led to the Targaryens being cursed with madness. And if rumors were to be believed, then it was the relationship between Ser Jaime and the queen that led to her father’s death and Joffrey’s reign.

And yet.

Those words nagged at Sansa’s mind. And yet. And yet Jon was not Jaime Lannister, he was not the Mad King. Sansa recalled the words she once told Brienne, it seemed so long ago now. Jon was _Jon_.

Strong Jon. Kind Jon. A boy turned man who promised to protect her, who left his brothers at the Wall for her. She had been so alone for so long. She had spent years in King’s Landing facing nothing but disdain, manipulation, and the occasional pity, that she forgot what love looked like.

Jon didn’t seek anything from her. Not even her love, in truth. He merely wanted her to be happy as she once was, to feel confident as she once had.

She had given up on true knights, but Jon had proved her wrong.

And he _loved_ her. But did she love him? Could she love him as he wanted her to?

She thought of his smile as they told tales of Robb, and Arya, and the boys back when they were all together. She thought of his warm arms and tight embrace the day she arrived at the Wall and the feeling, for the first time in years, that she was safe. She thought of the snow melting in his hair when she told him that winter had finally come.

They were the last of their pack. He was her salvation, and she his. And she decided, yes, she would defy the gods themselves to stay with him, to _be_ with him.

She didn’t even realize she was running until she reached the foot of the tower. She rounded stair after stair to the Lord’s chamber.

“Jon!” she cried, banging insistently on the door. “Jon!”  
She nearly smacked him in the face in trying to knock when he swung open the door.

To say he looked shocked would be an understatement.

“Yes,” she said breathlessly, the flight up the stairs catching up with her.

His brow furrowed, stretching the scar along his face that, for the first time, Sansa realized was rather handsome.  
“Yes, to what?” he asked.

“I love you too!” she said, a smile spreading unbidden across her cheeks.

He shifted lightly backward, unsure.   
“You don’t have to say that,” he assured her warily. “I don’t expect anything from you. You needn’t do me any favors, I would never treat you differently for…”

“Oh do shut up!” Sansa said, impulsively surging forward and wrapping her arms around his shoulders to lay her lips on his.

He froze underneath her for an agonizing moment, before his arms came to wrap around her waist as he lifted her off the floor so that just her toes were grazing the stone, just like he had that day at the Wall. His lips began to move beneath hers, and—Gods, how could anybody say this was not right?

Sansa felt her feet return to solid ground as Jon pulled back. His dark curls fell about his face and his pupils were wide in his grey eyes as he stared at her in wonder.

“You truly feel the same way?” he asked, as if expecting the impossible.

“I do,” Sansa smiled again and lifted a hand to curl into his hair. “I think I always have. I just needed you to tell me it was alright.”


End file.
